There’s a very fine line between boredom and having a burnout.

What magic are we talking about? Unicorns? Men from Mars? An orgasm? What? I don’t know.

Here’s the thing: I’ve tried leaping out of my comfort zone, and it didn’t work out for me. However, I’ve also tried to take things very slowly. That also didn’t work out for me.

I’ve found that you need a balance between challenge and comfort. And that’s a very, very, difficult thing to do.

The reason is that doing challenging things requires skill (see drawing above). The more challenging the task, the more skill you need. The problem with taking huge leaps is that you don’t have the skills to address the challenge.

It’s a concept I learned from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s seminal book on the way we work, Flow.

After studying the relationship between challenge and boredom, he found that a combination of both factors leads to personal growth. Csikszentmihalyi says:

“One cannot enjoy doing the same thing at the same level for long. We grow either bored or frustrated; and then the desire to enjoy ourselves again pushes us to stretch our skills, or discover new opportunities for using them.”

It sounds like common sense, right? Instead of taking big steps, take smaller, and more controlled steps. But never get too comfortable because that’s boring. And once you get bored, you stop growing. But life is about forward motion — that’s what ultimately helps us grow.

To illustrate this concept, let’s do a little exercise.

Which one of the following three statements describes your situation best?

A) I’m bored.

B) I’m stretched too thin.

C) I feel like I’m challenging myself without going insane.

Do this if you answer A (I’m bored)

Get out of your own head and start doing something new. Discover new things in life. Pick up a new sport. Find a different job. Take on different projects.

You need a challenge! Life is too easy for you when you’re bored all the time.

But also remember this: Don’t get addicted to novelty. Learn to love learning. When you hop from one thing to the next, you never get good at anything. Again, it’s about balance.

Do this if you answered B (I’m stretched too thin)

Take a step back. Give up. Quit. Say, “Screw you guys! I’m going home!” You need to accept that it’s okay if something is too much. Things are too much for a reason. Find out what that is. Then, address that problem so it doesn’t happen again in the future. Learn from your past experiences.

Do this if you answered C (I feel like I’m challenging myself without going insane)

Just keep it up.

“Isn’t that paradoxical?”

Yes, what did you expect? That life progressed linearly? That you have a clear start and a defined end? And that life moves forward from start to end?

That might be something that we all want. But we all know that’s not going to happen. We must accept that life is unpredictable, paradoxical, and non-linear.

The only thing that’s a given (other than death and taxes) is that nothing is given. You see?

We must adapt. And we must do that all the time. That’s why finding the sweet spot of growth is a quest, not an end destination.

Remember the times when creativity was only for artists? And that creativity was considered a waste of time? Even though that mentality still exists in education, creativity is one of the most valuable skills in today’s complex world.

Businesses look for creative employees.

Artists all over the world step up their creative game.

And entrepreneurs are basically artists in suits.

Creative thinking is a well-respected skill these days. And with enough practice, everyone can think more creatively. But I still meet people all time who say, “I’m not a creative person.” That’s bullshit, and you know it.

Our perception of a creative person is just wrong. What do you associate with the word creativity? A painter, musician, or artist?

But creativity is nothing more than doing old things in a different way. Nothing new about that. However, if you solve problems in a different way, you’re creative. And that’s pretty cool to me.

What you’ll find below is a list of 4 ideas I’ve found to be very helpful for my creative thinking process. I’ve skipped the classic advice such as get enough sleep, go for a run, and listen to classical music. Also, you don’t need to travel the world to improve your creativity.

Let’s get down to it.

1. Set limitations

The biggest mistake I made with creative thinking was a thinking error. Like many others, I believed that creativity thrives on freedom.

In fact, the opposite is true. Rules, constraints, and limitations force you to think creatively. So next time you’re blaming your manager or client for thinking too small, you should thank them.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, said it best:

“I think frugality drives innovation, just like other constraints do. One of the only ways to get out of a tight box is to invent your way out.”

Always try to shrink the box. Is the budget 10K? Find a solution for 5K. Don’t have a deadline for your screenplay? Finish it in two weeks.

When you have fewer resources and time, you’re forced to find novel solutions.

2. Get very bored

The first strategy works well when you’re in the act of creation. But when you’re starting on an empty canvas, I’ve found another approach that works effectively.

When you find it difficult to set the first step, write the first sentence or draw the first line, you might want to consider getting extremely bored.

But watch out, only apply this strategy if you’re driving 130 miles an hour in your life. If you’re already feeling bored with your work, life, or career, don’t overdo it. If nothing novel is happening in your life, you need the opposite. Just get up and do something. Doesn’t matter what it is.

But when your mind is racing, stop it, and do nothing. At those times you realize how great it is to create new things, connect the dots, and come up with new ideas.

3. Do something you can’t

Before Arnold was known as a movie star, he was a successful bodybuilder. During this period, he had a hard time getting a decent role in a movie. So when he auditioned for Conan The Barbarian, he did everything to get the part.

When they asked him, “can you ride a horse?” He confidently said, “yes.”

The truth was that Arnold had never ridden a horse. But because he told the producers that he could, he worked his ass off to learn horse-riding before they started filming the movie.

I’m probably butchering this story, but it comes down to this: Just say yes. And figure out how you can do it later.

4. Soundboard your ideas off a critical person

I have a few pessimistic friends and mentors. Every time I talk to them about a project or idea, their answer starts with, “Hmm… I don’t know about that.”

When people question your ideas, it’s for a reason. Nothing is perfect. And everything can be done better. Always.

But you need someone to point you in the right direction. Also, you need someone to do it in the right way. You don’t want to ask someone who doesn’t wish you well for their opinion. Because they get satisfaction from shooting down ideas and people.

Find someone who cares. If you can’t, get a coach or mentor who can serve as your soundboard. It’s worth it to have someone second guess your ideas and not say, “this is the best thing ever!”

When you’re forced to rethink your work, you often come up with even better solutions. And that’s true creativity.

Stop doing things because “this is how it’s always been done.” That’s not a valid reason. That’s laziness.

Instead, find new solutions, do things differently, and do it all the time. Then, before you know it, you’re a creative person.

Originally posted on Medium.com

]]>http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/how-to-boost-your-creativity/feed0How to Stop Procrastinating on Your Goals by Using the “Seinfeld Strategy”http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/how-to-stop-procrastinating-on-your-goals-by-using-the-seinfeld-strategy
http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/how-to-stop-procrastinating-on-your-goals-by-using-the-seinfeld-strategy#respondThu, 17 May 2018 17:59:36 +0000http://skyejordanauthor.com/?p=2550

by James Clear

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most successful comedians of all‐time.

He is regarded as one of the “Top 100 Comedians of All–Time” by Comedy Central. He was also the co–creator and co–writer of Seinfeld, the long–running sitcom which has received numerous awards and was claimed to have the “Top TV Episode of All–Time” as rated by TV Guide.

According to Forbes magazine, Seinfeld reached his peak in earnings when he made $267 million dollars in 1998. (Yes, that was in one year. No, that’s not a typo.) A full 10 years later, in 2008, Seinfeld was still pulling in a cool $85 million per year.

By almost any measure of wealth, popularity, and critical acclaim, Jerry Seinfeld is among the most successful comedians, writers, and actors of his generation.

However, what is most impressive about Seinfeld’s career isn’t the awards, the earnings, or the special moments — it’s the remarkable consistency of it all. Show after show, year after year, he performs, creates, and entertains at an incredibly high standard. Jerry Seinfeld produces with a level of consistency that most of us wish we could bring to our daily work.

Compare his results to where you and I often find ourselves. We want to create, but struggle to do so. We want to exercise, but fail to find motivation. Wanting to achieve our goals, but — for some reason or another — we still procrastinate on them.

What’s the difference? What strategies does Jerry Seinfeld use to beat procrastination and consistently produce quality work? What does he do each day that most people don’t?

I’m not sure about all of his strategies, but I recently discovered a story that revealed one of the secrets behind Seinfeld’s incredible productivity, performance, and consistency.

Let’s talk about that what he does and how you can use the “Seinfeld Strategy” to eliminate procrastination and actually achieve your goals.

The “Seinfeld Strategy”

Brad Isaac was a young comedian starting out on the comedy circuit. One fateful night, he found himself in a club where Jerry Seinfeld was performing. In an interview on Lifehacker, Isaac shared what happened when he caught Seinfeld backstage and asked if he had “any tips for a young comic.”

Here’s how Isaac described the interaction with Seinfeld…

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.

“After a few days you’ll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.” [1]

You’ll notice that Seinfeld didn’t say a single thing about results.

It didn’t matter if he was motivated or not. It didn’t matter if he was writing great jokes or not. It didn’t matter if what he was working on would ever make it into a show. All that mattered was “not breaking the chain.”

And that’s one of the simple secrets behind Seinfeld’s remarkable productivity and consistency. For years, the comedian simply focused on “not breaking the chain.”

Let’s talk about how you can use the Seinfeld Strategy in your life…

How to Stop Procrastinating

Top performers in every field — athletes, musicians, CEOs, artists — they are all more consistent than their peers. They show up and deliver day after day while everyone else gets bogged down with the urgencies of daily life and fights a constant battle between procrastination and motivation.

While most people get demotivated and off–track after a bad performance, a bad workout, or simply a bad day at work, top performers settle right back into their pattern the next day.

The Seinfeld Strategy works because it helps to take the focus off of each individual performance and puts the emphasis on the process instead. It’s not about how you feel, how inspired you are, or how brilliant your work is that day. Instead, it’s just about “not breaking the chain.”

All you have to do to apply this strategy to your own life is pick up a calendar and start your chain.

A Word of Warning

There is one caveat with the Seinfeld Strategy. You need to pick a task that is meaningful enough to make a difference, but simple enough that you can get it done.

It would be wonderful if you could write 10 pages a day for your book, but that’s not a sustainable chain to build. Similarly, it sounds great in theory to be able to deadlift like a maniac every day, but in practice you’ll probably be overtrained and burnt out.

So step one is to choose a task that is simple enough to be sustainable. At the same time, you have to make sure that your actions are meaningful enough to matter.

For example, researching good jokes each day is simple, but you’re never going to write a joke by merely researching. That’s why the process of writing is a better choice. Writing can actually produce a meaningful result, even when it’s done in small doses.

Similarly, doing 10 pushups per day could be simple and meaningful depending on your level of fitness. It will actually make you stronger. Meanwhile, reading a fitness book each day is simple, but it won’t actually get you in better shape.

Choose tasks that are simple to maintain and capable of producing the outcome you want.

Mastery Follows Consistency

The central question that ties our community together — and what I try to write about every Monday and Thursday — is “how do you live a healthy life?” This includes not merely nutrition and exercise, but also exploration and adventure, art and creativity, and connection and community.

But no matter what topic we’re talking about, they all require consistency. No matter what your definition is of a “healthy life,” you’ll have to battle procrastination to make it a reality. Hopefully, the Seinfeld Strategy helps to put that battle in perspective.

Don’t break the chain on your workouts and you’ll find that you get fit rather quickly.

Don’t break the chain in your business and you’ll find that results come much faster.

Don’t break the chain in your artistic pursuits and you’ll find that you will produce creative work on a regular basis.

So often, we assume that excellence requires a monumental effort and that our lofty goals demand incredible doses of willpower and motivation. But really, all we need is dedication to small, manageable tasks. Mastery follows consistency.

Self-signaling: which means that, as a person, you evaluate and judge yourself the same way you judge others — based on behavior. So, if you watch yourself do something, you identify yourself with that behavior. If you drink alcohol, for example, you begin to identify yourself as someone who drinks alcohol. If you wake up early, you identify yourself as someone who wakes up early. If you write articles online, you identify yourself as a writer. Thus, how you see yourself is highly fluid, and based on your own behaviors. As your behavior changes, your perceived identity changes.

Precognition: which means that thoughts don’t necessarily lead to behaviors, but that behaviors can also lead to thoughts. In other words,common wisdom suggests that your inner world creates your outer world.Hence, “mental creation precedes physical creation.” This is certainly true. But behaviors (and environments) can also create internal states. For example, if you jump into an ice-cold bath, you’ll begin to experience a cascade of emotions and thoughts. Or lack of thoughts. What precognition shows is that you can actually PREDICT your inner state by behaving in certain ways, and by placing yourself in certain environments. Thus,change doesn’t only happen from the inside out, but also from the outside in.

Both of these ideas are strongly related to other research in psychology, which suggests that behaviors generally come BEFORE psychological states. Again, this goes against most common wisdom.

My favorite example is the research on self-efficacy (confidence), which shows that confidence isn’t what produces high performance. But rather, that high performance is what produces confidence.

Put simply, if you want to have confidence, you can have it. All you have to do is behave in desired ways, even for a short period of time.

Why does all of this matter?

It matters, because you have the power to radically change your identity.

When you’re approaching, you’re less concerned about risks and more focused on rewards. You’re willing to take risks. You’re willing to fail. You’re being PULLED forward.

When you’re avoiding, you’re less concerned about the rewards and more focused on the risks. And you have no desire to proactively confront those risks. Instead, you’re simply trying to shield yourself from any problems that come your way.

I’ve seen this with many of my role models. For example, some of my favorite authors have shifted from approach-oriented to avoid-oriented.

I can see it in their work.

It’s become far more safe.

They are making far less significant ideological attempts in their writing.Their books are becoming more mainstream. Obviously calculated and less intuitive and inspired.

When you begin succeeding, your focus can shift from WHY to WHAT. Instead of operating from your core, your simply try to maintain success.

This is how you get stuck.

This is how you get confused and lose your identity.

Are you on offense or defense?

Are you approaching or avoiding?

Are you proactively becoming the person you want to be?

Or are you holding on to the person you think you are?

The Antidote: Never Stop Re-Inventing Yourself

In the brilliant Netflix documentary, Chef’s Table, which highlights the lives of the world’s most successful chefs, one particular episode stands out.

The number one chef in Asia, Gaggan Anand, is known for spontaneously throwing out his entire menu and starting from scratch. Even when his current menu is getting lots of attention.

This may not seem like a big deal, but it is.

When a restaurant starts getting recognized and certain awards, it’s generally based on the menu and overall atmosphere.

Being literally number one in Asia, it would make sense for Gaggan to keep his restaurant how it is.

But that’s not what he does.

Creativity, and always pushing his own boundaries, is what he is about.

So just because something is working doesn’t give him permission to stop evolving.

So he reinvents himself.

Over and over and over.

No matter how hard it is to walk away from something brilliant.

A true creator never stops pushing their boundaries.

They never stop reinventing.

Once you become awesome at something, use your new LEARNING ABILITIES to become awesome at something else.

The whole notion of “finding your calling” has led people to having fixed views of themselves.

There isn’t just one thing you were born to do.

You can expand and grow in countless ways. Especially after you learn the process of learning. You can take all of your experience becoming great at something, and quickly become proficient at something else.

In this way, you never plateau. You’re always growing and evolving as a person.

The 30-Day Challenge

Given that your identity is fluid and malleable, you have an amazing opportunity to redefine who you are.

All you have to do is consistently and boldly reshape your behavior.

You can do this in the form of a 30-day challenge.

What’s something you’ve wanted to do, that you haven’t done?

Or, what’s something that would clearly lead you to a place you’d like to be?

It could be 30 days of extreme health and fitness.

That would definitely change things.

It could be facing an extreme fear: like 30 days of asking people on dates.

It could be 30 days of writing articles, or filming videos.

Whatever it is, if you do it for 30 days, your identity will change.

Your fears will become cauterized and neutralized.

You’ll adapt to your new behaviors.

Your psychological state will change.

You’ll begin to identify with your new behaviors.

Will you have to deal with some negative emotions along the way?

Will you face a load of resistance and fear?

Will you want to quit?

The answer is probably yes to all of those questions.

But THIS is how you separate yourself from the masses.

This is how you make quantum leaps in your progression, while most people make incremental progress.

This is how you consciously shape your identity and future.

Where will you be in 30 days from now?

WHO will you be 30 days from now?

]]>http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/how-to-change-your-life-in-30-days-2/feed0Forget About Passion (Focus on This Instead)http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/forget-about-passion-focus-on-this-instead
http://skyejordanauthor.com/self-improvement/forget-about-passion-focus-on-this-instead#respondMon, 07 May 2018 12:12:41 +0000http://skyejordanauthor.com/?p=2516

By Ayodeji Awosika

If you’ve read my work for awhile, you know I don’t subscribe to the flowery, rosy, overly positive version of self-help.

You know what I’m talking about.

It’s the type of personal development riddled with phrases like:

You must find your ultimate passion.

Find something you love and you’ll never have to work another day in your life.

The problem with focusing on what you’re passionate about is… it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it comes with a poor underlying assumption. The assumption is that your level of love dictates how dedicated you’ll be to the journey. You think that once you find that ultimate passion, things will fall into place, and you’ll do the work necessary to succeed.

This is backward.

In reality, you don’t find passion until you get good at something. When you develop competence in something you enjoy, you build more confidence to help you tackle larger challenges, and you continue to grow, which fuels more passion to repeat the process.

Then, one day, you look up and your successful. Every person you see at the top of their game followed the simple recipe I’m about to explain.

You can follow it, too. Just know that you’ll need to work at it for a while. It will work if you’re patient. It won’t if you aren’t. So you will be, right? Ok, good.

The Dead Simple Process to ‘Finding Your Passion’

First, let me say this — you’re probably making the process of figuring out what you should be doing with your life way too difficult.

You can’t sit in a room and contemplate your life until your passion magically appears. Just find something you feel you might enjoy doing and practice doing it.

You probably know what you’d enjoy doing because you’ve already done it in some shape or form. Think back to when you were in adolescence. What did you enjoy doing? What were you fascinated by? What did you want to learn because you wanted to learn it and not because it was force-fed to you?

I wrote poems when I was 12 years old. I loved vocabulary tests and the other kids always wanted to me to read out loud because I could do it faster than everyone else. I was always the first to open my mouth in class — either to ask a question or to crack jokes and ‘disrupt the learning environment.’

I was always a curious kid who loved words. Now I write and speak in public. Pretty simple.

Don’t overthink it.

Your childhood is a clue. The section of the bookstores you’d love to read every book in is a clue. The blogs you’ve read about someone doing something that make you think “wow” that’d be cool. Is a clue.

Practice Makes Perfect

There’s something energizing about trying to master something.

The lack of purpose and meaning in today’s society, in my opinion, comes from a lack of deliberate practice.

Few people want to be excellent. Few want to put in the type of work required to have the passionate lifestyle, the alternative career, the purpose filled life. We’d rather complain about our circumstances, our jobs, our lack of resources, our lack of talent, our lack of this and lack of that.

If you’re not where you want to be and don’t have this magical passion, you lack the real desire to learn and the desire to get good at something. That’s it.

Just choose something to take on a trial run. That’s how I started writing. I had no plans of becoming a professional writer (whatever that means). I wrote one blog post and discovered I enjoyed it. Then I wrote a second, a third, a fourth, a 20th, a 50th, and now 500 plus posts.

After practicing for a while — I’d say a year — I started to believe writing could be more than a hobby for me. I started learning different skills like building an email list, outlining a book and writing it, copywriting, and more.

I’ve adopted the attitudes and habits of a ‘skill-collector.’

If you’re a skill-collector, you start to look at learning new tasks and facing new challenges as part of the process of becoming a multi-faceted person who’s the best at what they do.

I’ll never be the best writer in the world, but if I’m really good at a handful of things, I can be in the top five percent of those combination of skills.

If you develop your own talent stack, you’ll continue to discover more opportunities, which will increase your skills and make you even more passionate.

Try one of these techniques the next time you sense Impostor Syndrome creeping up. Because ultimately, holding yourself back and letting yourself be a victim to the impostor syndrome is the greatest risk of all.

Information is abundant. The proper application of information (i.e., wisdom and understanding) is scarce.

The following skills are essential to quickly filtering through the endless universes of information, choices, and distractions that now lay before us in a digital and global world.

Mindfulness — the awareness of CONTEXT and of changes within that context (patterns, themes, connections, predictions).

Discernment — the ability to recognize and anticipate the consequences of the patterns around you — and to know WHAT TO DO as a result.

Action — the common and outdated view that beliefs determine behavior is wrong — rather, it is your behavior that shapes your beliefs, personality, and identity. Having a bias for action and immediate implementation is how rapid learning occurs. Experiential learning is far more powerful than gathering information. Experience is emotional — and emotion, not rationality, is what changes mindsets and behaviors.

Expectancy — according to the “Expectancy Theory of Motivation,” three things must occur for a person to have high motivation for achieving their goals. You must believe you can do what it takes to achieve your goal. You must believe that you know how to achieve it (you have the proper methods). Finally, you must believe that the rewards of the particular goal are personally meaningful. Another word for expectancy is faith — the belief in your ability to seize or create a future outcome.

Feedback — failure is feedback. You shouldn’t and can’t avoid feedback if you want to learn. When you have “transformational learning experiences,” your worldview is disrupted. You replace old ways of seeing with new and better ways. The faster and more consequential the feedback you get, the more in flow you will be.

Adaptability — according to Charles Darwin, it’s not the smartest or the strongest that survive, but the most adaptable to change. Most people believe that children are more adaptive than adults. Children, after all, can learn multiple languages at one time, if given the opportunity. Adults seem to become more rigid and less adaptive. Or so the thinking goes. The truth — children have more to adapt to. They’re required to learn and figure stuff out in order to survive in society. As you grow older, you have less to learn in order to survive in society and to meet the expectations of the norms around you. Yet, if you were to continually put yourself into higher and more demanding situations, you could adapt. You could adapt faster, actually, than children, because you already have so many deep and powerful connections made. The key, is being willing to let go of the models which are no longer effective at the higher stages of adaptability. If you want to adjust to new norms, you’ll have to adapt to them. And you can.

The remainder of this article is a brief dive into how to master these six keystone skills.

The “keystone” is the center stone in an arch which holds the rest of the structure together. Without the keystone, everything falls apart. In the book, THE POWER OF HABIT, author Charles Duhigg explains that “keystone habits” lead to the development of multiple good habits. They start a chain effect in your life that produces a number of positive outcomes.

Keystone skills, similarly, are those half dozen skills which facilitate the development of other skills. They are foundational to living a life in alignment, to having confidence and clarity, and to becoming a powerful learner and leader.

If you develop these six skills to mastery, there is little you won’t be able to do and become in your life.

You’ll be able to quickly discover the signal in the massive sea of noise.

You’ll make powerful, intuitive, and quick decisions.

You’ll take immediate action on the most important and relevant information.

You’ll expect the best outcomes to occur — which will create self-fulfilling prophecies.

You’ll get immediate and consequential feedback to what you’re doing — which will keep you continually humble, engaged, and getting better.

You’ll adapt immediately based on the feedback you get, which you keep you continually adjusting and improving what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

How To Develop Mindfulness

“The hefty price for accepting information uncritically is that we go through life unaware that what we’ve accepted as impossible may in fact be quite possible.” — Ellen Langer

In her important book, MINDFULNESS, Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer, explains that mindfulness has two components:

In our individualistic culture, we have a hard time being mindful. We have a hard time recognizing the power of surroundings and situations.

This is a big problem because we, as people, are shaped by what is outside of us. We like to believe we are the masters of our fate. But our situation and environment are far more powerful. As Dr. Mashall Goldsmith has said, “If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.”

Once this realization takes hold, you become far more aware of what (and WHO) is around you.

You become more sensitive to the energetic effects of people, places, and things. This heightened sensitivity is mindfulness. Because not only do you notice how your surroundings influence your body, mind, and emotions — but you notice shifts in your surroundings. Not just from one situation to another, but the broader world as a whole.

You notice patterns and changes in society and how most people operate. You see things before most people do, because as Ellen Langer explains, most people mindlessly and reactively walk through life.

They are unaware just how much their environment is shaping them. They are unconsciously becoming something they wouldn’t want to be.

Thus, the benefits of mindfulness are:

You can make powerful decisions about outside influences that shape your behavior and identity

You can predict where you as a person, and society as a whole, is going

How To Develop Discernment

“Being quick to observe is an antecedent to and is linked with the spiritual gift of discernment. And for you and for me, discernment is a light of protection and direction in a world that grows increasingly dark.” — David Bednar

Being mindful is all about OBSERVING what is around you. It’s about noticing subtle cues, and about thinking critically about what you’re noticing.

Discernment means you’re aware of the IMPLICATIONS of what you’re observing. It means you can PREDICT where certain behaviors, actions, ideas, and environments will take you.

When you development discernment, you can make powerful choices, because you have both information and intuition. You can’t have discernment without first observing and paying attention.

This will require you to become a very, very good listener. To pay attention to what you’re hearing and what you’re seeing. To become a student of life.

Intelligence is the proper application of information and knowledge. Most people are not intelligent because they don’t apply what they learn. They aren’t hyper-critical about what they let influence them. They haven’t developed a framework and set of values for determining what is a waste of time and what isn’t.

Your discernment for people, information, choices, and consequences will continue to develop as you enhance your standards for yourself. Your life is a product of your standards. You get in life what you’re willing to tolerate.

According to the famed Peter Drucker:

“In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time — literally — substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it.”

People aren’t prepared for the world we now live in because people haven’t developed mindfulness and discernment. As a result, they experience decision overload and decision fatigue — hence willpower is no longer a useful skillset in today’s world. Instead, you need to mindfully create your environment. You need to make one decision that eliminates a thousand decisions. You need to continually hold yourself and those around you to a higher standard.

How To Take Positive Action

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Dallin Oaks once said, “We should be careful not to exhaust our available time on things that are merely good and leave little time for that which is better or best.” Your life and who you become is entirely shaped by the quality of your decision making.

Your behavior shapes your identity and personality. You are what you DO.

If you have five minutes, how are you going to use that time?

If you have two hours, how are you going to use that time?

If you have five books to choose from, which book will you choose?

If you have five friends who you will become the average of, which five friends will you choose?

Your answer to everyone one of those questions determines the person you will become, the life you will live, the happiness you have, etc.

If you aren’t mindful and discerning, you won’t make powerful decisions. However, it all starts with one simple decision to act powerfully. According to research by Stanford psychologist, BJ FOGG, small wins create enormous ripples of confidence.

Personality is a byproduct of choice — although for most people that choosing was made unconsciously, reactively, and mindlessly. Most people are the negative product of an undisciplined and unintentionally-designed environment.

Your personality is the momentum and pattern of prior decisions. Although it may seem like “you,” it is not. Only the present and past version of you. If you change your behaviors and environment, you will change yourself.

As you become more mindful and discerning by making positive actions, your beliefs, behaviors, and personality will change.

You absolutely can get to the point where you proactively and consciously transform yourself. You can go from introvert to extrovert. From shy to incredibly articulate. From dull to creative.

Do most people make such profound change? Of course not. They’re not required to. They’re not demanded to. They don’t expect to. They don’t feel the fear and do it anyways. They don’t create powerfully emotional experiences that disrupt their core — allowing them to see and act differently than was their past.

Learning can be defined as making a PERMANENT change in your cognition and or behavior. It’s not LEARNING if it doesn’t lead to a change in how you see and live in the world. Gather information is not learning. Doing the same thing over and over and over isn’t learning. You must have emotional and transformational experiences that change how you operate and see the world. You must grow in understanding and INTELLIGENCE.

initiate and sustain the motivation for using those strategies (i.e., agency thinking)

Ideas are cheap. Creating plans and executing those plans is rare.

Very few people implement what they learn. You can read hundreds of books, attend seminars, and get expensive coaching — but none of that will matter if you don’t put any of the ideas into practice.

We live in an information world. People’s heads are full of information. It’s never been easier to access. Yet, few people’s lives make dramatic transformation because few people discern which information is crucial, develop plans for executing that information, and immediately applying that 80/20.

As you begin acting toward your goals and getting small wins, your confidence will increase. You can’t have confidence without positive and goal-consistent behavior.

Eventually, and rather quickly, you can develop “expectancy” that your goals will happen. This “expectancy” can become a resolve and deep commitment — where you know before the fact that what you want, you will get. Napoleon Hill explained it this way: Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.

Knowing something and BELIEVING it are two very different things. Believing in something takes a willingness of the heart.

Many people know what they should do, but they don’t believe it enough to actually do it. They don’t truly believe in themselves and their ability to change. Their lack of belief stops them from taking the needed actions to create that change. Instead, they become cynical or justifying.

How To Set Your Life Up For Immediate And Consequential Feedback

“This automatic feedback is another reason extreme athletes have found flow so frequently, but what if we’re interested in pulling this trigger without help from the laws of physics? No mystery here. Tighten feedback loops. Put mechanisms in place so attention doesn’t have to wander. Ask for more input. How much input? Well, forget quarterly reviews. Think daily reviews. Studies have found that in professions with less direct feedback loops — stock analysis, psychiatry, and medicine — even the best get worse over time.” — Steven Kotler

Feedback is how you change your mind. Feedback is how you change your behavior. Feedback is how you get into flow.

When you take bold actions, you get feedback much quicker. For example, when you share your goals publicly, you get different feedback from when you keep them private. When you invest a large percentage of your money into your values and goals, you’re far more accountable to those goals. Failure means a lot more.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The more your environment and situation demands you to rise up, the more you’ll rise. Psychologists call this the “pygmalion effect.” It’s your responsibility to create that environment. All you have to do is start acting. Start being more honest. Start seeking more responsibility. Start being more proactive. Powerful actions change situations. Powerful action changes relationships. Powerful action changes your trajectory.

How To Become Adaptive And Fluid

“If something is presented as an accepted truth, alternative ways of thinking do not even come up for consideration.” — Ellen Langer

Children are adaptive because they have to be. They haven’t developed habits of avoiding change. They seek learning and understanding. They are constantly getting feedback from the world around them.

Yet, adults eventually stop adapting. Instead, they over-adapt to the environment around them. They stop putting themselves into situations that force them to change. This reflects a lack of mindfulness, action, and confidence.

Once you’ve developed confidence in your ability to learn and adapt — in your ability to mindfully mine and discern new situations and environments — you’ll be far more willing to jump into new and demanding situations. You’ll be far more active at taking on new challenges. You’ll be willing to fail and be humbled. You’ll seek more feedback.

You’ll act. Because as you act in new a profound ways, you’ll quickly adapt to your new situation and it will become your “new normal.”

Viktor Frankl explained in MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, “Yes, a person can get used to anything, just don’t ask us how.” You can get used to living in a concentration camp. You can get used to anything. You will learn and adapt.

As a super-learner, your job is to take immediate action, get feedback, and adjust to the feedback you get. When you stop adapting to new things, you stop learning. Over-adapting is the path to apathy and boredom.

Find that child inside of you and never stop learning. Kids learn to walk because they have to. They learn math and reading in societies where it’s required. They learn whatever the norms of their environment require them to learn. Once learned, they stop learning. Unless they continually change their environment and situation. Hence, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. When the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears.

Lessons are repeated until learned. Most people stop learning their lessons because their situation supports them in their decision-making. They are justified in what they’re doing. They don’t mindfully see the patterns of their behavior and the behavior of those around them. They don’t develop discernment and immediate implementation. Their personality gets stuck and they thoughtlessly believe they can’t change — that who they are when they were born is who they must be when they die.

Conclusion

Have you developed these six skills?

Mindfulness

Discernment

Action

Expectancy

Feedback

Adaptability

The world is becoming increasingly intrusive. If you don’t learn these skills, you’ll be shaped by an environment that was created for you, not an environment that was created BY you.

If such is the case, you’ll stop developing and over-adapt. You’ll get stuck. But you don’t have to get stuck. You are fluid and adaptive. You’re actually more adaptive than children — if you choose to be. If you’re willing to purge and uproot old patterns and paradigms with new ones.

If you’re willing to change, you can change. But you can’t see yourself in isolation. You are part of the system around you. The change must be holistic.

I used to think that burnout was only about being tired. For months, this misunderstanding kept me from accurately identifying and treating burnout. Often, I would end up attributing cynical thoughts, another component of burnout, to my work environment, mental attitude, or fatigue.

As a result, burnout became this monster in my head which took over whenever it wanted. A monster I couldn’t properly identify, and, thus, had no idea how to fight. All I could do was duck and pray for it to magically leave.

Luckily, I stumbled upon a study which used self-efficacy exercises to reduce burnout and enhance performance in college students. It was like someone had perfectly described my state of mind.

Since then, I have used those exercises to avoid fatigue and recurring exhaustion. I’ll show you how to do it, but first, you have to identify the culprit.

Are You Suffering From Burnout?

Thanks to the study, I finally had a name for my monster. Here’s a basic formula to help you identify if you suffer from burnout:

Burnout = Cynicism + Feeling of detachment + Exhaustion

For example, cynicism would be to think “I won’t be able to get an A on this test.” Proceeding to detach yourself from the problem, you’d then stop wanting to even look at your books. On top of all this, you’d feel preparing for your tests is very draining, in spite of not doing much at all.

In addition to the three basic components of burnout, I also identified the following symptoms from my own experience:

A temporary, but significant fall in persistence. Example: “Look! I made a small calculation error. Let me close my book and not study for another week.”

Overthinking. Example: “What if I make silly calculation errors during the exams as well? What if I never stop making silly calculation errors in math? What if I never stop making silly errors in life? Am I really doomed to die a mediocre guy?”

Knowing what exactly burnout was I already felt some relief. It was like finally having found an itch. The next step was to figure out how to scratch it.

Using Intervention To Fight The Monster

Self-efficacy is your belief in your ability to succeed. It’s a major driving factor of burnout. Having burnout is essentially having a self-efficacy crisis.

Thus, by carefully moderating my level of self-efficacy, I concluded that I should be able to become almost immune to burnout. I started maintaining a calendar, marking occurrences of my “monster” to study the correlation between my mood, productivity, and burnout. It was a strong one.

Notice how the frequency of occurrence changed before and after a research-based intervention:

Red = burnout, green = intervention

It is worth noting that my workload has only increased with time. But even though I now spend over 14 hours every day on writing, coding, or learning, I rarely get burnt out, and when I do, I have a plan for recovering quickly.

What Makes A Good Self-Efficacy Intervention?

Since a burnout is essentially as self-efficacy crisis, improving your self-efficacy will help reduce burnout. According to this research from Albert Bandura of Stanford University, our levels of self-efficacy are determined by four principle sources:

Mastery experiences: The most reliable and powerful source of self-efficacy. Have you ever felt elated and super confident after having successfully performed a task important to you? That is what a mastery experience is, and it boosts your level of self-efficacy.

Vicarious experiences: Watching others, preferably our role models, succeed using sustained efforts at the tasks we ourselves are aiming to succeed at. Doing this makes us believe that if others can do it, then we can too — thus increasing our self-efficacy level.

Verbal persuasion: By having other people persuade us into believing that we “have what it takes” to succeed at the predetermined task, we can increase our levels of self-efficacy. These have to be people we’re influenced by, like parents, spouses, teachers, etc.

Psychological and physiological states: Psychological and physiological aspects such as anxiety levels (and how we deal with them), stress, and fatigue also have an impact on self-efficacy. Untreated anxiety, high stress levels, and high fatigue all cause the level of self-efficacy to drop.

Here are the exercises I developed to draw more self-efficacy from these sources.

Four Exercises To Moderate Self-Efficacy

Below are the four practices which helped me moderate and boost my self-efficacy levels. Two of them draw from Bandura’s research, the others are based on my personal observations.

1. Trading your way up with mastery experiences

When you are on the downward spiral towards burnout, you can’t just jump back to writing a 2,500 word article and magically begin spiraling upwards. The process has to be gradual. When burnt out and unable to write, I start small by casual journaling to get the ball rolling — something which is easy to do and doesn’t require any creative energy.

Then, I aim to write a small, sub-500-word fictional story. I keep in mind that the story doesn’t have to be great. It just has to be. In this way, I gently turn on my creativity engine while increasing my self-efficacy, and often end up writing more than 500 words and loving the story. Eventually, I find myself self-effective enough to write a full-fledged article on Medium.

The task changes — writing, coding, sketching, painting, whatever — but the underlying process remains the same. You have to start with small victories which give you a small boost of self-efficacy because of the sense of mastery you get. Then, you have to use this boost to get a bigger victory. In this way, you can easily trade your way up to the desired self-efficacy level.

This is the most effective and reliable source of self-efficacy, and I recommend you perform it after receiving a small boost by performing some of the other steps mentioned below.

2. Visualization and auto-suggestion

This is a trick I learned from the book “Think and Grow Rich”. Auto-suggestion is a principle of altering your “underlying” or subconscious beliefs by repeated affirmations mixed with strong emotions. For example, you could repeat to yourself “I’m a self-effective person who sometimes gets burnt out but then recovers and thrives” several times each morning.

3. Set an example

When I’m not performing at my usual levels, I keep reminding myself that I must get back to my previous levels of self-efficacy so that I can inspire and set an example for those around me. This leads to a hike in my self-efficacy, which helps me produce work which, again, inspires people around me — inspiration which comes back to boost my self-efficacy again, forming a virtuous cycle.

For people who give a high priority to their pride and self-esteem, this is a great strategy.

4. Correctly deal with anxiety

Anxiety was one of the biggest factors causing dips in my self-efficacy and, hence, burnout. I used a simple three-step solution to deal with anxiety better:

Pause thinking.

Identify anxious thoughts.

Analyze the validity of those thoughts.

Nine times out of ten, I found my anxiety rested on baseless fears and paranoia. If your anxiety is more complicated and severe, considering using this tutorial on WikiHow which goes to a deeper level, or consult a professional.

Some solutions proposed in the research, like verbal persuasion, did not work for me, but they may work for you. Consider talking about your burnout in great detail to the people who influence you, and then have them persuade you into having a higher level of self-efficacy.

Also, the third practice I mentioned was custom designed using my observations. It may or may not work for you. Similarly, try to identify your own sources of self-efficacy.

Some Key Factors To Keep In Mind

The greater the difficulty of the task you’re trying to perform, the greater the boost to your self-efficacy because of mastery experiences.

When the successful completion of your task is attributed more to your abilities than to your efforts, you get a bigger boost to your self-efficacy. In the opposite case, the boost is comparatively smaller.

Similarly, if you perceive the successful completion of a task as a result of your environment and circumstances (and not your own abilities), the boost in your self-efficacy will be comparatively lower.

The Only Remaining Enemy

While the regular repetition of the four practices I mentioned above helps me avoid burnout, I still run the risk of burning out when I become fatigued.

As far as my knowledge goes, there really is no good way to “beat” fatigue and perhaps that’s a good thing. It is wise to compromise with it and always ensure that I get adequate rest, something which not only will help me avoid burnout but also improve my health in the long term.

Conclusion

Even now that my work load is way higher than it used to be, now that I’m either writing, coding, or learning for about 62% of my day, I have been able to greatly reduce my chances of burnout.

As soon as I sense my self-efficacy dropping — more cynical thoughts and detachment from work — I immediately begin course-correction.

This is how I beat the monster and I hope you will be able to conquer it too.

Have you ever started a project, full of fire and excitement, only to watch it slowly peter out a few weeks in?

This happens to all of us. But why does it happen?

The latest research reveals that our behavior is controlled by brain circuits that often operate without our conscious awareness.

Neuroscience researcher and coach, Mark Waldman, explains three reasons that your brain may be keeping you back from the finish line. Then, he suggests some tips and tricks that you can use to make sure you get there.

1. Lack of Neurological Motivation

The brain’s motivation circuit is based on pleasure. Your goal/desire must bring a real reward, that will cause the release of the neurotransmitter, dopamine. This increases your conscious ability to create strategies to help you achieve that goal.

If you haven’t associated your goal with pleasure, then your brain isn’t going to be interested in helping you achieve it.

Let’s put it this way when you think about your goals, do you dread all of the painful, annoying tasks you’ll encounter along the way? Or do you instead focus on the benefitsyou’re about to receive?

If you find your energy waning as you complete a project, visualize the real benefits you’ll gain if you complete it. Also, give yourself a daily (even hourly) reward as you move toward completion.

The more you associate your goals and dreams with positive emotions, the less you’ll have to “force yourself” to get the work done.

2. Unconscious Negative Self-Talk

Perhaps you talk yourself out of trying. You may be unconsciously listening to the negative chatter that’s actually a normal part of right prefrontal lobe functioning. If you think that could be the case, try this:

Write down every reason you don’t want to complete your project, and make a second list of every reason you do. Mindfully observe both lists and listen to your intuitive voice. Ask yourself: “What do I really want to do? Do I really want to complete this project? Will it enhance my life if I complete it? Ask yourself: “Are these negative thoughts and feelings valid?”

I think you’ll find that most of the time, they are not. Having negative thoughts on a piece of paper gives them less power over your brain. When you aren’t ruminating on negative thoughts, your brain is free to pursue goals that promise useful valuable rewards and outcomes.

Remember, anytime you feel an intangible dark cloud above you, check in with your thoughts. If you find negativity brewing, let it out on paper and let it go.

3. Lack of Discipline and Commitment

If you’re not committed to achieving your goals than forget it. To finish what you started, you must maintain a constant willingness to persist and persevere. Some people believe that just visualizing a goal makes it happen, but that’s magical thinking (probably driven by unconscious negative beliefs).

Although it’s important to visualize your goals, it’s also important to take action.

You need a written “business” plan to achieve any major goal (thinking is not enough to motivate your lazy brain). You must write down any REAL obstacles that stop you from completing a project and then visualize and write down simple strategies to overcome that obstacle.

And if you have an accountability partner your odds of completion increase from 50 percent to 70 percent, so make a committed deadline to a friend or colleague. You can also reward your brain every day after you write down three small successes you achieve on a daily basis.

There you sit again: browser open in front of you, the hum of your office in the background, your to-do list sprawled out on your notepad.

And… you don’t feel like doing anything.

Faced with this lack of motivation, you start to experiment:

You try working offline. You try the pomodoro method. You take that a walk around the block, as suggested by everyone. No major improvements. You’re not being as productive as you should, and you need to fix that… fast.

So you put on your headphones, pull up your favorite pop song or ambient rain mix and listen. Instantly, you can focus on those boring tasks on your to-do list (looking at you, email).

And now you got one of them done. Then another. Now you’re bobbing your head and in the zone.

When nothing else seems to help make us productive, the right music can supercharge us. But in terms of our brain and work, what does music do and why does it help us?

Science, music, and your brain

Photo from Twenty20.

Studies about how music affects our brains and emotions have been ongoing since the the 1950s, when physicians began to notice the benefits of music therapy in European and U.S. hospital patients. However, humans have been using music to communicate thoughts and feelings to one another for centuries.

Today, research suggests that music can help relieve negative emotions like stress, anxiety and depression. It can even decrease instances of confusion and delirium in elderly medical patients recovering from surgery. Furthermore, research says that listening to happy or sad music can make us perceive others as being happy or sad, respectively. All of these findings make it clear that, for better or worse, music’s impact on our emotions is very real.

In terms of how music affects the brain, we can turn to a specific niche of research called neuromusicology, which explores how our nervous systems react to music. Basically, music enters the inner ear and engages many different areas of our brains, some of which are used for other cognitive functions, as well. (If you want to know the specifics of this detailed process, Dawn Kent explains it neatly in her thesis.)

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of brain areas activated by music varies from person to person, depending on your musical training and your personal experiences with music. Therefore, how music impacts your ability to concentrate or feel a certain emotion can be expected to vary from person to person, too.

However, there are some general brain and mood patterns that modern music research reveals, and these can help us decide what kinds of music to listen to at work.

How music affects your brain and mood at work

Photo from Twenty20.

For the most part, research suggests that listening to music can improve your efficiency, creativity and happiness in terms of work-related tasks.

However, there are stipulations to these benefits. For example, studies seem to agree that listening to music with lyrics is distracting for most people. Therefore, it’s oftenrecommended that we avoid listening to music featuring lyrics when working on tasks that require intense focus or the learning of new information.

In contrast, listening to music with lyrics may actually help people working on repetitive or mundane tasks, perhaps because the distracting nature of lyrical music can provide a kind of relief from the monotony of boring work.

For a greater understanding of how music affects work, here are just a few of the many studies conducted on workplace productivity and music in recent years:

In 1994, The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that surgeon accuracy and efficiency improved when surgeons worked with music playing. Music selected by the participants had the best results and, even when working with music selected by researchers, the surgeons performed better than those who worked with no music at all.

In 2005, research from the journal of Psychology of Music showed that software developers experienced more positive moods, better quality of work and improved efficiency when listening to music. The study also notes a learning curve for participants using music to alter their moods.

These examples are merely a snapshot of the research that has been conducted on music’s affects on employees, but we can already start to see the benefits music has on work.

Science shows some ambient and natural music can boost your productivity

Research suggests that ambient noise, or ambient music as we may prefer to think about it here, could be the best kind of music for work productivity.

A 2006 study from the journal of Ergonomics found continuous noise to be the least annoying background noise, while distinguishable speech was “the most disturbing, most disadvantageous and least pleasant environment” for participants. The study also included a “masked speech” variable, which proved to be the most effective means of arousing participants’ mental states, while (somewhat surprisingly) continuous noise was the least effective.

In 2012, The Journal of Consumer Research published a study investigating the effects of ambient noise on creativity. The study suggested that creative processes improved when participants listened to ambient noise at a moderate volume — about 70 decibels, approximately the volume of a vacuum cleaner. The study also found that creativity suffered in the presence of high-volume ambient noise — about 85 decibels, slightly louder than a garbage disposal.

Considering those studies above, it’s very probable that ambient music has the potential to help improve your mood and productivity. However, for music to really improve your productivity at work, you’ll likely need to alternate between periods of no music and periods of different kinds of music.

We can recall that, when learning new information, music without lyrics is preferable to lyrical music. However, if we complete this task at work and need to switch to a more repetitive, well-known task, we may benefit emotionally and productively from listening to music with lyrics. And, depending on the complexity of the task, we’ll likely encounter instances throughout the day when we need to ditch our headphones altogether and simply focus on what’s in front of us.

That said, finding the right kind of music can be challenging at times. This is part of the learning curve mentioned in the Psychology of Music research above. Clicking around to find the right artist can certainly detract from workplace productivity but, once you know what works for you, music can become a tool for near-instant concentration.